Ekou
by Ceyana
Summary: Kagome is hit with an unknown and confusing curse. The effects of it on her are draining and hurtful. This is a darker fic. Ratings will probably go up.
1. Summer Starts

This is a slightly angsty fic, but I hope you like. Please let me know if you do. Either was I hope you like it. Next chapter posting should be a week, due to a term paper. PS. I don't own InuYasha, but if I did I think I would still write here *smile*  
  
EKOU Chapter 1  
  
Some moments in life surpass words. They encompass every feeling of joyfulness and elation that one can muster. They make the light shine brighter and the world seem greater. Flowers millions of miles away smell heavenly at these times and stormy skies seem to be a brilliant blue ocean of clearness. It is times like this that language fails to express sheer blissful emotions. And it is in times like this that one has to reach deep down into their soul and pull out the one word that articulates this raw emotion.  
  
"YIPPIE!!!!" echoed through the full classroom. It does not take much to make an 11th grader this happy. Just give her the final bell of the year that signals summer has arrived and she will euphoric. But give her a better word to scream when the time comes and she will be even better. Her ecstasy sunk a few notches when she noticed the others in her class staring oddly at her.  
  
"Kagome!"  
  
Her friends had met her in the hall directly after class. Each one was anxiously talking about their plans for summer and when they should next get together.  
  
"My family and I are going to China this summer, but that won't be till July," Ayumi smiled.  
  
"I am going to stay in Kyoto with my cousin Atasuke for a couple of weeks but then I am coming home to just relax. Some serious downtime sounds awesome." The weariness was nearly visible in Eri's voice.  
  
"At least you get to go somewhere. I get nothing but downtime. Mom and Dad are working all summer," Yuka sighed. She managed looked both sad and annoyed. The three chattered for awhile in the hallway. It wasn't till a short while later, after bring up that they should all meet next week before their plans started, that they realized Kagome had not said what she was doing this summer.  
  
"Eh he," she blushed. "Um... I am kinda going to be gone all summer." She said this quickly hoping maybe it would lessen the blow. But for the second time that day Kagome earned the curious stares of near-by students as her three friends shrieked a furious "WHAT??" in complete unison.  
  
The blush that graced her cheeks was instantaneous. She immediately launched into some story about doing stuff with her grandfather. But while she was lying through her teeth about doing something with him, her mind was thinking about InuYasha. She had not told him that she had cleared the summer entirely for him. Ahem, for the shards. The last time she had seen him was about a month ago, when she had declared she needed time for final exams. When the word "month" was mentioned all hell had exploded. She didn't know if it was possible for a demon to be possessed but she honestly thought his head would do circles and fire would spit out from his ears. That dog could be scary when he was pissed. But a few well placed "sits" and she had been able to skip all the way to the well.  
  
But today was not only the day she got to return to the much more exciting feudal era, but she got to tell InuYasha that she was going to stay almost three months! She hadn't stayed that long (willingly) in quite awhile. If it had been anyone else she would have hoped for maybe a hug of joy or at the least an exclamation of happiness. With InuYasha she would just be happy if she got a smile with the usual well placed "Feh."  
  
The thought of her tough little half-demon brought an even wider smile to Kagome's face. And the blush from earlier that had been disappearing flared anew. Her friends all noticed the red on her cheeks, and the stuttering hesitations to answer their questions. They all knew Kagome had an overzealous boyfriend and none of them liked him (Granted none of them had ACTUALLY met him, but he sounded just deplorable.) For her to lie to them about her summer wasn't cool but it was understandable. And it was the last day of summer. They didn't need their last day to end with an argument. Each one of them held their tongues and acted as if they believed her every word.  
  
And it was with this that the four friends happily parted for the summer.  
  
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A nameless tune sang through Kagome's heart. This was her day. Nothing could go wrong today. The sky was cloudless. The birds were singing. The promise of no studying for the next three months put a spring in her step. This was the day she had been waiting for! She got to see everyone in the feudal era again today! Especially InuYasha! She was elated with thoughts of her being welcomed back. This was her day! And gosh darnit, not even InuYasha himself was going ruin her happy day!  
  
Her walk home was pleasant. Various greetings from passer-bys and warm, sunny weather graced her trip. By the time she had reached the shrine the nameless tune had reached her lips and a joyful humming had escaped. Her song could be heard as she ran up the stairs, as she packed her belongings into the giant yellow backpack, and even as she ran back down the stairs to deposit the backpack next to the well. Her farewells to her family members started off normal. Her mother hugged her and told her to be careful. She also gave her advice: General advice for life and the dreaded men advice. The dreaded men advice started with "Kagome you're 17 now and you may be having certain feelings," and ended with, "it's okay to say no." Or at least it would have if Kagome had not rolled her eyes and ran out the door half-way through.  
  
Her farewell to her brother was barely heard by the young Playstationer until she mentioned InuYasha's name. The Pokemon, Yugio, or whatever anime game was popular with young boys these days was left forgotten. The blonde, glowing man on the screen was left helpless against a giant pink guy jumping up and down on top of him. The boy who had left his glowing, electronic teammate tackled his sister. Questions ran out his mouth in a way that only the pre-teens can manage: The racing speech of a teenager and lung capacity of a kid. From the few words she could actually understand she got that he missed InuYasha and that he basically wanted to know when he was coming back.  
  
After telling her brother that she would be going to see InuYasha for the next three months so it might be a while, she gave him a hug and said goodbye. She left him not only disappointed about not getting to see his hero anytime soon, but to see "Game Over" and his favorite anime hero laying flat underneath a giant pink marshmallow.  
  
Saying goodbye to her grandfather was what turned her once good day upside down; Upside down and completely on its ass. 


	2. Mr Kanasake

I still don't own InuYasha!  
  
EKOU Chapter2  
  
She couldn't find her grandfather anywhere in the house. He was not in his room or on any one the first floor room. Giving up on the house, she went to look for him out in the shrine. He could often be found out there sweeping the front steps, or doing some recreational dusting. As long as he didn't have to bend over too much he wanted to do his share.  
  
Truth be told her grandpa loved this shrine. He might not hold much in the way of spiritual powers, but his beliefs never wavered. To others he might seem like a silly old man (and sometimes he was), but he transforms when it comes to the shrine. He glows with a pride and external confidence that only universal understanding can bring. And when he is with his shrine it is like he has that universal understanding. Maybe it is a religious thing, maybe it's just an old man thing, Kagome didn't know. She just felt honored to be one of the few people who got to see her grandfather's other half.  
  
She shook her head as she turned a corner to the shrine. She always got sentimental when she was about to leave to go see InuYasha and the others. She loved her family and she really did miss them while she was away.  
  
Upon turning the corner she saw her grandfather talking to another man. It was not unusual to have visitors at their shrine, and before she gave him any significant notice she ran up to her grandfather.  
  
"Gramps!" the energetic and practically beaming Kagome yelled. The old man turned his head to see his granddaughter running straight at him, waving. The smile on her face was lovely. Coming to a screeching halt beside the two men Kagome got her first look at the man to whom her grandfather was conversing. The man was no taller than her grandfather, but was twice his width. Oddly enough, he seemed to be lumpy in places.  
  
Choosing to ignore the stranger (for if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all) she turned to address only her grandfather. "I am about to leave to go..." darn those verbal pauses, "see my friend. He's not feeling well." She hoped the emphasis on the word 'well' was enough to get through to him.  
  
The looked that appeared on her grandfather's face was enough to tell her he understood. He wasn't InuYasha biggest fan, but he did understand that she had an obligation to uphold in that other world. Her grandfather could always be trusted to encourage spiritual duties. She gave a fierce hug to the old man and turned to leave. Her attempt to flee was cut short though by gruff "Ahem."  
  
"Pardon my granddaughter Mr. Kanasake. She is not normally this rude." The word 'rude' was emphasized. "But you know how children are these days. Always rushing around. Thinking they have to go save the world." The obvious amusement in his voice at his own little joke was annoying. "Mr. Kanasake please meet my one and only grandchild Kagome Higurashi."  
  
Kagome was just about to bow as a formal greeting when the stranger stuck his hand out. "Nice to meet you." The action was a purely western greeting but his speech made her gaze draw up towards his face. His words had seemed slurred and muffled like he had an orange in his mouth and was trying to talk around it. The face she was saw reminded her why she had avoided him in the first place. Kagome was not a superficial girl, but even some things were enough to repulse her.  
  
The man she had been introduced to was horrible. It was the only word her shell-shocked mind could come up with. Horrible. Yellowish-white skin looked as if it had just been melted onto his body. His skin hung in great folds around his face like banners of stretched Silly-Putty. Normal characteristics like the eyes and the nose should have stood out but were instead overwhelmed by vast amounts of excess skin. It also seemed to be the reason why the man's speech was so distorted. A great globule of the skin, which seem weighted down by some internal body fluid, hung directly over the place where the mouth should appear.  
  
The skin, though in great mass, was not the worst of the man's face. It was the yellowing crust that enclosed the great expanses of skin that gave him a gnarled and decaying appearance. Reasonably it could only be explained as yellowed and aged scabbing that crested each great wave of skin. The effect left the man to look like an open and peeling sore.  
  
If the rest of this man's body matched his face it was unknown to her. He was covered tightly in what appeared to be an oversized trench coat. The material hung heavy around him and reached past his feet to collect on the floor below. He was short and the volumes of heavy fabric made him look almost entangled in drapery. Everything about him looked weighted and folding.  
  
The only other skin not hidden by the engulfing coat was the skin on the man's outstretched hand. It too had the yellowed scabbing looked to. The skin from each finger as if the man had a webbed hand. A loose and gnarled webbed hand. Black hair clung to the folds of skin in various dark patches. The hair looked coarse and thick, even from a distance. Kagome was distinctly reminded of pubic hair.  
  
When her gaze had landed on his hand she had frozen. Her body had no idea how to react to the sight before her and her mind tried to process what she was seeing. Some time must have passed with her just standing there, for it was all too soon when she heard her Grandfather say her name in a sharp intake of breath.  
  
"Kagome!" this broke her frozen gawking, and brought her back to the situation which must soon take place. "This man was nice enough to comment on the beauty of our shrine and he is a guest. He has greeted you in a polite manner of his own customs. You will be polite and return the sentiments."  
  
So that was it! This man had complimented the shrine! It was no wonder why he was being treated with the highest of courtesy. Feed he grandfather's ego once and he is your friend for life. InuYasha had never once fed his ego (let alone recognize his existence) and he didn't like the boy. Granted this was because he still hadn't accepted InuYasha because he was half-demon, but he had known the boy for two years! Now this guy comes along and they're best friends after, what, five minutes?! He grandfather had great timing for being accepting.  
  
Kagome, now put on the spot, stuck her hand out towards the man reluctantly. She felt repulsed by the sight of this man but she also felt some what disappointed in herself. She had never thought of herself as someone who was shallow. And the first person she meets who is truly deformed, and warped in their appearance, she feels the need to run from. She had met many odd looking characters in her travels, but there was something about this man that repulsed her.  
  
The man did not seem to notice the hesitation or reluctance in her ascending hand for he grabbed hers the second she began to raise it. His grasp on her hand was strong. Every voluminous finger pressed its excess skin against hers, under a cold film of sweat. The skin though coarse in appearance was actually incredibly smooth. Some far part of her mind related the feeling of his hand to that of a raw ham.  
  
A second after her mind had connected this man with a lunch meat her world slipped away from her. A stench overtook her senses and infused her with smell of something putrid. The smell of decay and death hung almost visible in the air. So heavy was the stench that it seemed to block out the sunlight in a cloud of living, humid odor. The cloud seemed to collapse around her till she was left suffocating, her throat and eyes filled with living odor.  
  
When the man released her hand everything was fine. The stench was lifted, and the world became clear again. Kagome didn't know if it was just her imagination or her nerves, but for a few moments that smell had been her world. It had swept her into a new and terribly ugly earth that she doubted she could have envisioned even in her worst dreams. A world of rotting meat, was the best her mind would allow her to describe the now withdrawn smell.  
  
"Kagome, are you alright?" her grandfather asked harshly. He must have noticed that something had upset her. In truth he was worried about her. She had never treated a patron of the shrine so rudely before. To him the visitor might look a little odd but there should not be censorship in who should visit a holy place. He had never seen Kagome act so superficial and he was not pleased with what he saw. If someone was a guest, they should be treated as so.  
  
Kagome did not respond for a second, because she was having a hard time trying to breathe again. The air around her was the clean summer air she had been basking in moments ago, but the air inside her lungs still seemed to be polluted. Her throat and lungs seemed coated in whatever had corrupted that mans body. After a few tries she finally said, "Yes grandfather." Her address to him was abnormally formal. "I am *cough* sorry but I suddenly *cough* am not feeling well. Please excuse me." A series of rough sounding coughs took hold of her then. The pain in her lungs bent her over till the fit subsided and she was able to stand straight again, if not a little weakly. "It was nice meeting you *cough* Mr. Kanasake." And with that she took off. She heard her grandfather yell her name to her retreating figure but she paid no mind. Her throat hurt. She didn't care if that man was a demon or just a stinky guy, she needed to be away.  
  
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Inside Kagome ran herself a hot shower. The water was scolding but she wished she could make it hotter. The smell that had permiated off that man haunted her. She could smell it everywhere. She mentally swore to throw away the clothes she had worn at their meeting, and wished she could easily discard her body that seemed drenched in the stench.  
  
She tried once more to turn the hot water faucet further but it had reached its max. Instead she settled for scrubbing. Never before in her life had she been this obsessed on making herself clean. Granted, she always enjoyed her baths but this was a cleaning out of desperation. Every part of her felt as if it was coated in that same slick film of sweat that his was covered in. And for a reason unknown to Kagome, the idea of it sinking into her terrified her. Inside she cold still feel the toxic fumes that had disgusted her earlier. Her innards felt drenched in them. . Her body burned from the searing water and her skin hurt from the unyielding scrubbing she was exposing it to. By the time that she had noticed that her skin was glowing a bright red, and that the washcloth she had used was stained with small scrapings of blood, she was exhausted. Her muscles collapsed and she fell effortlessly onto the tile below.  
  
The tile was warmed from the heated rain of the shower. And even sandwiched between the rain and the warm floor beneath her, Kagome lay naked shivering. Her mind wouldn't let go of the feeling that she was being covered in the stranger's slime. She didn't know how one man's touch could make her feel so gross. A tear slipped out her eye and onto the tile below. It was all that she had strength for before she slipped into unconsciousness.  
  
******************************************************************  
  
When Kagome awoke she was cold. The world swam in dark moving shadows along an obscured white-square covered surface. It took her a moment before she recognized her own bathtub floor. When she finally realized where she was, the memories of the encounter with that stranger came flooding back to her. A cold shiver ran through her as she remembered the after effects of meeting him. The compulsive shower that had nearly cooked her, was her only answer to the feelings of disgust that had raked her body.  
  
She did not know how long she had been in the shower, but the water she remembered to have had been near boiling now rained liquid ice upon her back. The tile that had been so warm now lay under her cold and hard.  
  
As she began to pick her self up, one heavy limb at a time, she wondered how long she had been out. Every muscle was stiff and the way her skin had pruned she could guess it had been awhile. But why hadn't her family come to see if she was alright she wondered.  
  
Black tendrils clung to face and shoulders as she pried herself upwards one muscle at a time. The floor and the walls were slick with layers of water and she knew she was going to slip even before she did so. It was one moment of painful standing and the next of dizzying falling. Until she was truly awoken by the feeling of her back, and buttocks, slamming into the frozen tile below.  
  
"Gahhhhhhh!" she cried in wordless frustration. She could only imagine what InuYasha would say if her could see her now. Worthless.....pathetic.... "InuYasha!" this time her cry was that of horror. If she had been out for a while that would mean she was late to go meet him!  
  
"Dammit!" she shrieked, slamming her fists into the tile below, painfully. This was supposed to be my day! Her mind yelled. Nothing was supposed to go wrong. I was supposed to tell him the good news and have fun! Dammit fun! It was my day! A string of uncharacteristic curse words flew from her mouth as she wrenched herself free from the bathroom's tile. Standing cautiously she bent to turn off the water. Every muscle hurt, but she knew she had to hurry to help curb the half-demon's wrath. She significantly felt a better when she had finally shut the freezing water off. Thoughts of the stranger vanished as thoughts of InuYasha took her over. With him in mind, she got out of the shower and went to put on fresh clothes.  
  
It took her about another half an hour before she had managed to dress herself and make her way down to the well. She had concluded awhile back that her family must have gone out and not have told her. They had probably assumed that she had already left. With a final glance back at the shrine, she leapt over the brim of the well and let herself fall into the darkness. 


End file.
